Do I Want Children? And Other Twenty-Something Questions I’m Afraid to Ask Myself

I guess it’s that time of year; isn’t there a scientific fact that people fornicate more in the winter months? That’s why you don’t see a lot of January-March babies: it’s too f’ing hot in the summer.

“Hey, babe, wanna have S-E-X?”

“FOR THE LOVE OF GOD! WHY DID YOU JUST TOUCH ME?! WHY?! DON’T YOU KNOW IT’S HOTTER THAN SATAN’S ASSHOLE RIGHT NOW?! HAVEN’T YOU FELT SATAN’S ASSHOLE BEFORE?!?!”

Babies weird me out because I’m a.) an only child and b.) a child of divorce. I wasn’t exactly conditioned to have offspring, but as I get older and realize there is a slight chance I could DIE ALONE, the thought of having many, many children to cater to my every beck and call sounds like a solid idea.

My biggest fear- besides getting bitten in the ass by a snake while tubing and separately, developing West Nile Virus- is ending up like that actress from Attack of the 50 Foot Woman, all mummified for a year before someone notices my mail piling up in the mailbox.

To not end up like Yvette Vickers is reason enough to have children, folks!

I don’t think I would be a bad mother. In fact, I really like kids.

Crying children in restaurants and planes don’t bug me. Shit, they’re hungry, they’re poopy, they’re confused as to what is going on around them…wouldn’t you cry too, if you could? Let them have this time, you cranky adults who whine and bitch about crying children. Let them.

What I don’t like are impolite children. Children who at eight years of age, hide behind their mother’s leg and give you a look of absolute disgust when you say hello to them, or the children who run around a store with their eyes glued to an Ipad screen, not watching where they’re going and when they run into you, look up at you with absolute disgust, and on the extreme end, children under ten in polo shirts who tell you about their trips to Tokyo where they’ve “eaten the best Italian food they’ve ever tried in the world” and that I’m stupid for having a plastic bag in my hand because it takes “thousands of years to decompose”. That kid I want to PUNCH IN THE FACE, but not as much as I want to punch his parents for creating such a pretentious beast.

If I had a kid, I would make he or she ironic, not pretentious. I would force them to wear onesies with Bill Murray on them:

My biggest fear about having children is that I would be a bundle of nerves for the kid’s entire life and that kid would grow up to despise me and I would develop a drinking habit just to deal with my nerves and the fact that my kid hates me. Anytime I read an autobiography about a writer or artist who grew up in an household where the mother was a basket-case who drank too much, I think, “Shit, that will be me! I will be that mother!”

I come from a family of worriers, a family where, up until I met Geoff, called the Austin police from New York when they couldn’t reach me in a 24 hour period. A family where when I tell them that I’m going on a road trip or a swim in a natural body of water or somewhere else in Texas that is not anywhere close to the Mexican border, they reference the latest news where a young woman was killed or injured and lie awake for nights envisioning all the ways I could die. I come from a family where if you’re not worrying ALL THE F’ING TIME something bad will happen and by not worrying about it, you lost control. It is all your fault.

I don’t want to put a child through this, but maybe if the child and I go to therapy together, we will get a discount rate?

18 Comments

Ha! I love this. My first thought when I found out my twins were girls was “They are going to HATE me.” Because doesn’t it seem like the mother/daughter relationship is usually either that of besties or that of complete hatred? And seeing as I’m not the parent who naturally knows what to do or say — not that I don’t try — I see the hatred coming pretty easily for them. Luckily my fears of tea parties and princess games were assuaged when it became clear that they preferred cars and dinosaurs and dirt.

But truthfully, no one knows what they’re doing. We’re all just making it up as we go along.

Oh man..I came from parents like that..and I am one now. However, my kiddos have turned out pretty awesome, so i guess i did okay. If you decide to go down that momma path at some point…you will do ok too. 😉

Do we have the same family? Is there a support group for women raised as only-children by their single mothers and grandmothers?

I recently butt-dialed my grandmother while my phone was in silent mode, so I didn’t answer when she called me back, repeatedly. She then called my mother, convinced that I had been abducted and this was my final cry for help. My grandmother also begged me not to go on a two-week trip to Peru because she would be ‘vomiting the entire time’ from worry. I am 27 years old.

My mother still guilts me into calling her when I arrive somewhere if I happen to casually mention that I’m driving someplace further than the grocery store, even though I live on the opposite side of the country so sometimes the time difference means I’m calling after midnight. But she is always, without fail, still awake counting down the minutes until she receives information contrary to her assumption that I have left the safety of my house and therefore must have been killed in a horrendous accident.

So I totally understand your dilemma. While I know they would love a grandchild/great-grandchild, it would almost be cruel to create another entity about whom they will have to worry.

I’ve come to the conclusion that I don’t want kids. I don’t hate kids, but I think having a kid would ruin me – turn me into an evil, stressed out, even more anxious version of myself. Plus I’m terrified that if I did have a child with someone they would leave me and I’d end up a single mom on welfare.

Plus my friends with kids have either disappeared forever or are super annoying and have nothing interesting to say about anything aside from stuff about their baby.

I bought that onesie for my ex’s nephew in 2009. His parents didn’t really get it.

My biggest issue with having kids is that I know how I’ll be. Insane with worry all the time, protective to the MAX, super annoying and obsessed with my child(s) until they leave home and abandon me forever and then I’ll be depressed and lonely forever.

This is the shit I think about when my friends are popping out little sweeties. I’m weird.

Since the wife and I just bought a house the baby question is reignited. I’ve always sort of waffled on whether I do or not. Working at the Museum I see tons of awesome moments between dads and their young kids bonding over the art and I SO want that.

of course 10 minutes later some kid comes in screaming and runs into a Picasso and I flip to the other side.

Goddamn. I was in the media tent at ACL this weekend, waiting in line for the bar (free drinks!). There was a guy in front of me with his two daughters — one was about 5 and one was about 8. The guy, who works in radio, had a few different media colleagues come up to him to say hi, as happens in the media tent, and every time, the 8-year-old would say loudly and rudely, “I don’t know who you are.”

The dad wouldn’t even correct her. It’s one thing not to want to talk to strangers but it’s a whole other thing not to fucking correct your child when they are being rude-ass motherfuckers.